CO tornados today

berrytea4me(Z5 CO)May 22, 2008

Very glad to say my kids and I are safe and sound. Fortunately the schools were put on lockdown otherwise my preschoolers would have been on the bus to daycare when the tornado went through Fort Collins this afternoon. Also fortunately it did not touch down in the city here. We all huddled in conference rooms in the center of our facility for 1/2 hour.

I live about 6 miles from Windsor which was severely damaged and so far reports 1 fatality. Hoping to find no damage at home later today.

I hope more people from north of DEN will check in too! IÂve been thinking of everyone living up that way all afternoon.

Most of the local TV stations have been on the air with continuous info since before noon today. IÂve been out planting tomatoes and eggplants most of the afternoon, and kept running in to check TV and NOAA to stay updated. Mike Nelson on Ch. 7 just said he thinks theyÂre going to rate the big Windsor tornado an F3, but it was probably a half mile wide and was on the ground for 10 miles. There was a childcare center in Windsor that was totally flattened. When they got the warning, they moved all the kids across the street into a bank and into the bank vault. No one hurt! Lots of pets are lostÂand found. And so far just the one reported death.

It's all getting up to Wyoming now with lots of watchs, but no warnings yet. Hope it doesn't redevelop into tornados up there yet today.

Well, we are north but not that north. We had no clue. I just worried all day at work because I forgot to bring the newly planted tomatoes (thanks Hoppity and CoMary!) inside. We had quite a bit of multiple-sized hail in Gunbarrel, half an inch to nearly an inch, but that was that.
I hope all are well!!
That would be GJMancini? Or is she in Westminster...now I forget.
J.

Here in Aurora yesterday, we had thunder and lightning and hard rain that pelted the ground for about five minutes and moved on. By the time I got out to check on the plants, it had dried up.

I was watching the news all afternoon and evening about it. One guy had home video of it. I wanted to yell, "Get inside! Get in the basement!" I'm from Tornado Alley in Illinois, and I know what tornadoes can do. I spent many a night with my family in the basement during tornado watches and warnings.

Here we go again- more tornadoes sighted today- near Johnstown and Greeley.

When I got home yesterday the only damage I found was that the kid's sandbox (one of those big wooden ones with the crank-down canvas lid) had been picked up and thrown toward the house. Fortunately the wrought iron screens that I had cemented in around the patio last year blocked it. Nothing broken, just had to set the sandbox back in place. We had no power until 9pm and the squash and cucumber plants I had just put out (after babying them in the house for a month) will have to be replanted.

The radar pictures showed the tornado tracked right over our town but it must have been just a little to the east before crossing I25 just a couple miles north of us.

I have friends and co-workers who live in Windsor and are affected. Their houses are standing but damaged.

Our place is fine, today and yesterday. We had a little wind and hail. Most of my friends over in Windsor have reported in with little damage.

I had a friend driving through Wyoming who was trying to get to Fort Collins last night. He wound up driving through snow and hail with his wife and daughter. They stopped to shelter from the hail at a gas station and watched a funnel cloud not too far away. They finally stopped in Cheyenne instead of coming here, and then drove home to New Mexico this morning as fast as they could manage.

Glad you guys are all ok, BerryTea, Lucky, and Foxes. Hope you all stay that way for the rest of the tornado season.

And you too, Jali. The storms went north this time, but we all know they'll head out your way one of these days!

It's funny you should mention the Limon tornado, 'cause all the news stations were talking about the Holly tornado, but I was thinking more about the Limon one. I was watching TV that day too--flipping from channel to channel--and suddenly radar went down on all the channels---when the tornado went thru town and took out the Limon radar station. It wasn't long before they all hooked into the doppler radar at DIA and were up and running again--and have been using the doppler ever since then---but what an erie feeling it was when radar disappeared from all the channels at the same time, and all you could do was sit and wait to find out how bad it was---and it was bad!

Here in NE Longmont we were supposed to have heard a tornado siren but it was either only in Spanish in some parts, or here in our neck of the woods nothing at all. Thankfully we didn't get to see the tornado that supposedly touched down nearby but we did get lots of nasty hail.

I was on the phone with my husband and we had trouble hearing each other because the hail was coming down so hard. My poor cat was trapped in the neighbors yard and was in so much distress to get home through the hail that he managed to break off all his nails on his back foot and lost some in front as well.

We have an almost 2 inch hole in our patio door frame where the hail busted a hole through it and I lost all my cucumber plants. Just ragged stalks left. My tiny little peas are still standing though much to my surprise.